Safety belt retractors which utilize energy derived from a rotating shaft for moving a lock pawl into engagement with a ratchet wheel mounted on webbing storage reel are known in the art; such as the inertia reel machanisms described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,578,260 to Kell and U.S. Pat. No. 4,059,242 to Tanaka. In these prior art devices, safety belt retractors are provided with a locking pawl and a first ratchet engageable by the locking pawl for locking a belt storage reel against unwinding movement and an actuating pawl which is moved into engagement with a subsidiary ratchet wheel during an emergency situation such that rotation of the storage reel imparted by protractive force exerted upon a safety belt webbing will cause the engaged actuating pawl to operate the locking pawl to prevent further rotation of the belt storage reel.
Such prior art retractors generally contain a number of external moving parts and consequently require a multiplicity of steps to assemble. As a result, such prior art retractors are relatively expensive to manufacture. Further, the multiplicity of parts involved makes such retractors relatively complex in operation.